In 1999, I accompanied the Baltimore Orioles on their historic trip to Havana, Cuba. This marked the first time since 1959 that a Major League Baseball team played in Cuba. Many of us hoped that a baseball game involving teams from the United States and Cuba might be a precursor to normalized diplomatic relations the way a ping-pong match signaled a change in U.S. relations with China. Unfortunately, those hopes were not fulfilled.

Recently, I visited Cuba to see how life had changed since the Orioles’ visit. What I learned was that, on a people-to-people basis, the citizens of Cuba and the United States desire close ties and normal business relations, but the governments of our two countries remain stuck in Cold War-era political battles. Although both Cuban and American doctors are in West Africa fighting the Ebola crisis, such cooperation remains the exception rather than the rule.

One hears statements from some government officials about a willingness to begin a new era of diplomatic relations the way a new era seemed to begin in U.S.-Soviet relations with the destruction of the Berlin Wall. However, there always seems to be a roadblock erected just as the parties move forward. The current roadblock involves the imprisonment in Cuba of Maryland resident Alan Gross and the imprisonment in the United States of a group known as the Cuban Five. I believe that the Maryland delegation to Congress may hold the key to opening the prison doors for all these men and subsequently opening a new era of diplomacy for these two countries.

Alan Gross, a 65-year-old from Montgomery County, was arrested in Cuba in 1999 while working on a contract sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development to increase Internet access in small communities across the country. The Cuban government alleged that his work entailed acts detrimental to the Republic of Cuba (essentially labeling him a spy) and sentenced him to a term of 15 years. He has served four years. His friends and supporters indicate that he is in very poor health, having lost about 100 pounds while incarcerated.

The Cuban Five are, in fact, intelligence officers sent to Miami in the 1990s to collect information on local anti-Castro groups allegedly engaging in activities that violated U.S. law, including acts of violence designed to bring down the Castro regime. Although the U.S. government received evidence supporting those allegations, U.S. prosecutors targeted not the groups in question but instead the five Cuban intelligence officers. The government chose to prosecute the Cuban Five in — of all places — Miami.

In 2001, after short jury deliberations, the Cuban Five were convicted of a variety of conspiracy charges and received sentences ranging from 30 years to life in prison. One of the five (whom I recently met) was released in 2011 after serving 15 years and sent back to Cuba on condition that he never return to the United States. Another was released in February on harsh parole terms. Three remain in prison.

It’s noteworthy that after carefully and objectively reviewing the cases of Alan Gross and the Cuban Five, the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned the imprisonment of all six men and urged the Cuban and U.S. governments to release them.

It is clear from statements made by Cuban government officials that the fate of Alan Gross is tied to the fate of the Cuban Five. Some proponents of the Cold War status quo may want Mr. Gross to languish in prison as a demonstration of the Castro regime’s cruelty. But that would not be the wisest or most humane course to pursue. Maryland’s congressional delegation should petition President Barack Obama to commute the sentences of the Cuban Five and return them to Cuba. By commuting the sentences, the president would not be commenting on the Cuban Five’s guilt or innocence. Rather, he would just be indicating that these men have served sufficient time.

This act would inevitably lead to Alan Gross’ release. That outcome would put our countries back on the path leading to the normalized relations that many had hoped for when the Orioles made their historic visit.

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama will not take measures to ease the embargo on Cuba unless the government of Havana makes significant progress in democratic and economic reforms, said his deputy national security advisor, Antony Blinken.

Blinken made the comment on Wednesday when Cuban-American senator, Democrat Marco Rubio asked him about rumors that Obama was going to use executive measures to relax part of the economic embargo on Cuba.

“Unless Cuba is able to demonstrate that it is taking meaningful steps to move forward, I don’t see how can we move forward in the relationship,” Blinken said.

He added that the President had ideas to help move Cuba in a democratic direction, but it all depends on Cuba and its actions.

The deputy national security advisor has been nominated by Obama to become the State Department’s number two and was appearing before a Senate panel for his confirmation hearings.

U.S. academic and political circles have been debating the possibility of normalizing relationships with Cuba, a country with which the U.S. ended its diplomatic ties in 1961 and on which economic and trade embargo were imposed in 1962.

Blinken said that the “unjust imprisonment” in Cuba of American subcontractor Alan Gross since 2009 was also an obstacle for improving ties.

In the Senate hearing, another Cuban senator, Democrat Bob Menendez, said that Cuba should not be allowed to attend the 2015 Summit of the Americas to be held in Panama.

The U.S. government has yet to confirm it will attend the summit but argues that Cuba should not be permitted as it does not comply with democratic ideals.

This year Washington’s policy may be subject to even more criticism than usual due to the widespread recognition of Cuba’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

Speaking before the General Assembly before last year’s vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.

However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:

The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.

So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest in 2011-12 ; that many of them were physically abused by the police; and that their encampments were violently destroyed.

Does Mr. Godard have access to any news media? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person.

As to “independent journalism” – What would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba has not changed since the revolution in 1959 – The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as many Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.

How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted its suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.
Judging and Punishing the Rest of the World

In addition to Cuba, Washington currently is imposing economic and other sanctions against Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, China, North Korea, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, South Sudan, Sudan, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, India, and Zimbabwe. These are sanctions mainly against governments, but also against some private enterprises; there are also many other sanctions against individuals not included here.

Imbued with a sense of America’s moral superiority and “exceptionalism”, each year the State Department judges the world, issuing reports evaluating the behavior of all other nations, often accompanied by sanctions of one kind or another. There are different reports rating how each lesser nation has performed in the previous year in areas such as religious freedom, human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons, and sponsors of terrorism. The criteria used in these reports are often political. Cuba, for example, is always listed as a sponsor of terrorism whereas anti-Castro exile groups in Florida, which have committed literally hundreds of terrorist acts over the years, are not listed as terrorist groups or supporters of such.

Cuba, which has been on the sponsor-of-terrorism list longer (since 1982) than any other country, is one of the most glaring anomalies. The most recent State Department report on this matter, in 2012, states that there is “no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.” There are, however, some retirees of Spain’s Basque terrorist group ETA (which appears on the verge of disbanding) in Cuba, but the report notes that the Cuban government evidently is trying to distance itself from them by denying them services such as travel documents. Some members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been allowed into Cuba, but that was because Cuba was hosting peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government, which the report notes.

The US sanctions mechanism is so effective and formidable that it strikes fear (of huge fines) into the hearts of banks and other private-sector organizations that might otherwise consider dealing with a listed state.

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World’s Only Super Power . His latest book is: America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy.

“New Mexicans are anxious to meet and work with Cubans, and the time is right to rebuild business and cultural ties between the United States and Cuba,” Udall said.

WASHINGTON – After returning from a three-day Senate Foreign Relations Committee trip to Cuba, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) pledged to continue working together in the Senate to open U.S. travel to and trade with Cuba, a potential new market for New Mexico, Arizona and other states. During the visit, the senators met with Cuban officials, including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parilla, and religious and business leaders to discuss the impacts of the embargo and travel restrictions on American and Cuban families. The senators also visited Alan Gross, an American who has been held in a Cuban jail since 2009. In conversations with Cuban officials and American media outlets, the senators stressed that Alan Gross wants to come home.

“New Mexicans are anxious to meet and work with Cubans, and the time is right to rebuild business and cultural ties between the United States and Cuba,” Udall said. “The Cuban regime is antidemocratic and has many flaws, but our current policy has proven ineffective and has primarily served to isolate the people of Cuba. It’s time for a 21st century approach that opens up opportunities for New Mexicans and other American interests. We’ll continue working as members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to push for the release of Alan Gross and continued steps to normalize relations with Cuba. I urge the Obama administration to act by relaxing travel restrictions and working with the telecommunications industry to improve the ability for the people of the world to communicate with Cuba.”

“My recent trip to Cuba has only reconfirmed the necessity of modernizing our failed policy toward the island,” Flake said. “While the significance of Cuba’s recent economic changes remains to be seen, there is now a burgeoning small-business community there, much of which is funded by remittances from the United States. Rather than continuing to provide the regime an all-too-convenient scapegoat and wasting money on boondoggle aid programs, it’s time to take commonsense steps to support these entrepreneurs, expand the participation of U.S. businesses in the Cuban economy, and lift the ban on non-Cuban American U.S. citizens travelling to the island. I was also pleased to have an opportunity to meet Alan Gross, and will continue to work for his release.”

The fact that The New York Times, one of the most influential
dailies in the United States and the world, has published in one
month six editorials against the economic, commercial and
financial blockade that Washington imposed on Havana more than 50
years ago is a sign that the Cuba issue has given rise to
differing opinions within U.S. political circles.

However, the search for ways to tighten the net around the
largest island in the West Indies is what has prevailed so far in
the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches. Two
examples confirm this.

The first refers to legal claims for over a billion dollars
belonging to Cuba. These have been frozen by our northern
neighbor following U.S. court rulings against the Cuban
government in the last few years in its ceaseless pursuit of new
sources to collect money.

This is why Cuban assets derived from telephone communications
with the United States, blocked in U.S. banks since 1966, have
been totally plundered as a result of the
“compensation” ordered by the courts. One of the
most notorious was Miami Federal Judge Alexander King’s
finding that the Cuban state and its Air Force had to pay $187.6
million dollars to the families of the pilots of the
counter-revolutionary “Brothers to the Rescue”
group whose planes were shot down when they violated Cuban
airspace on February 24, 1996.

On November 12, 1998, Judge King filed a motion before a New York
Federal Court seeking to order seizure of the blocked Cuban funds
and to start proceedings against AT&T and the Chase Manhattan
Bank. This was based on the Victims of Trafficking and Violence
Protection Act, approved on October 12, 2000, and thanks to which
the plaintiffs received around $97.6 million dollars.

The second example is the war declared by the multinational
Bacardi corporation against the French-Cuban Pernod-Ricard-Havana
Rum corporation over ownership of the Havana Club trade mark.
That ended in May 2012, when the U.S. Supreme Court prevented the
Cuban company Cubaexport from defending its right to renew
registration of the Havana Club brand with the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.

No enterprise has devoted so much in terms of money and resources
to finance actions against the Cuban Revolution as Bacardi, whose
managers have been involved in countless terrorist, subversive
and judicial maneuvers against Cuba. Back in the 1960s, Pepin
Bosch, the then head of Bacardi, organized the bombing of
Cuba’s oil refineries. As it happened, his plan, as well
as a picture of the B-26 bomber he had intended to use, were
exposed in The New York Times and never materialized.

Bacardi’s stockholders have stood out because of their
contributions to both Democratic and Republican Congress members
and anti-Cuban laws such as the Torricelli and Helms-Burton acts.
In the words of the Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina in
his book Ron Bacardi: la Guerra Oculta [Bacardi: The Hidden War],
“As one of the company’s top executives has
admitted, Bacardi is a Bermuda-based company without a
nationality. And yet, it used its economic power and contacts in
the highest political circles to virtually draft a U.S. law
tailored to its own needs. Not only does this piece of
legislation –known as the Helms-Burton Act–
threaten Cuba’s sovereignty and the survival of its
people, it also adds to the madness into which
capitalism’s commercial system is dangerously creeping in
its longing for bringing down every barrier to its.”

In violation of trade-related international standards, these same
actors promoted the approval of Section 211, as another step
toward the enforcement of the Helms-Burton Act included in the
4,000-plus-page 1999 budget bill. The first stages of Section 211
have it that no U.S. court can recognize any rights over foreign
trademarks or patents related to assets of an American citizen
confiscated without indemnity by the Cuban revolutionary
government.[1]
Jurisdiction over this
cause was thus denied to the judges.

As we can see, the fact that Pernod-Ricard executives attending
the recently-held Havana International Fair said they were ready
to market Havana Club rum in the United States and that several
American telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon
are interested in re-establishing direct telephone links with
Cuba is not good enough. The whole thing is about penetrating the
anti-Cuban structure through which Washington’s Cuba
policy is dictated.

“The hope of our peoples was reborn in the hands of presidents Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. The proposal of the Bolivarian alternative for the peoples of our America (ALBA) came to represent the potential launching of our nations’’.

Hugo Chavez FriasLate President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

‘‘It has occurred to us, to introduce a proposal that could be called the ALBA, the Bolivarian alternative for the peoples of our America. A new concept of integration that is not new at all: It Is about bringing back a dream that we believe is possible, It Is about a new path, It Is about a quest, for integration is certainly vital for us: either we…

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Propaganda and false premises mark the U.S. response to a “prisoner swap” with Cuba. In such a “deal,” Cuba would release a “wrongly imprisoned” USAID subcontractor in exchange for the freedom of three Cuban intelligence agents jailed as “terrorists” in the U.S.

The case of Alan Gross — the USAID subcontractor imprisoned in Cuba in 2011 for activities attempting to sabotage the Cuban Revolution — is sometimes juxtaposed, unfairly, with the case of the Cuban 5 — the Cuban intelligence agents unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. for their role in preventing terrorist attacks on Cuba.

The United States’ inability to overthrow Fidel Castro resulted in a series of violent terrorist attacks and attempts at sabotage. Among the worst of these attacks was the 1976 bombing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 — the work of former CIA agents Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. As Miami-based counter-revolutionary forces increased their attacks against Cuba, the Cuban 5 — Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González — were sent to Miami to gather intelligence and monitor the activities of exiled Cubans involved in counter-revolutionary activities.

The information they gathered was relayed to the U.S. government by a long-time friend of Fidel, acclaimed author Gabriel García Márquez, on May 6, 1998. With typical belligerence, the U.S. government dispatched an FBI team to discuss the findings with the Cuban government, which led to the subsequent arrests of the Cuban 5.

“Diplomatic compromise” is the key phrase in the purported solution proposed in mainstream media: freeing Gross in return for securing the freedom of the three remaining prisoners.

Asked whether the Cuban government would be interested in a prisoner swap during an interview with Democracy Now in 2012, Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, stated: “The Cuban government has expressed interest in finding a negotiated solution on humanitarian terms, and of course it is fully disposed to negotiate with the government of the United States. But it has not received any response.”

Media misrepresentation

The cases of Gross and the Cuban 5 are both misrepresented in U.S. mainstream media through language that diverts attention from the issues at stake — namely, the importance of acknowledging Gross as a USAID agent and the Cuban 5 as patriots defending their country from Miami-based terrorists.

Gross was sentenced to 15 years in prison for implementing subversive projects aimed at destabilizing Cuba’s socialist government. The U.S. claims of unjust imprisonment are little more than a propaganda mechanism that serves to foster anti-Cuban sentiment to prolong the blockade on Cuba and seeks to undermine the fact that Gross violated Cuban law. As Josefina Vidal, the general director of U.S. relations within the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated, Gross’ actions constituted an attempt at “destabilizing Cuba’s constitutional order through the establishment of illegal, undercover communications systems, with non-commercial technology.”

The argument brought forth by U.S. officials was that Gross was tasked with providing the Jewish community in Cuba with satellite phones and computer equipment. However, Gross had filed reports for USAID, the agency created under the Kennedy administration which disguises imperialist intervention under a banner of humanitarian aid. On his last trip to Cuba, Gross brought with him a chip that would prevent electronic transmission tracking. According a 2012 investigative report by The Associated Press, such equipment is “provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the CIA, but also can be obtained by the State Department, which oversees USAID.”

USAID relies upon its humanitarian shield in order to detract attention away from the actual objectives of the organization, which schedules its programs according to the broader U.S. agenda. In the case of U.S. propaganda against Cuba, freedom and democracy are convenient terms that have laid the foundation for decades of oppression against Fidel’s revolution, including terrorist attacks, attempts to counter the revolution, the embargo, over 600 attempts to assassinate Fidel, and the enduring wound of the case of the Cuban 5.

In response to the controversy ignited by a 2014 AP report on the ZunZuneo program, launched shortly after Gross was imprisoned in Cuba, USAID stated that “discreet does not equal covert.” The language is reminiscent of U.S. attempts to mellow imperialist intervention in various countries through terminology that not only neutralizes sabotage, but attempts to portray it as a necessity in the name of alleged freedom.

U.S. Sens. Jeff Flake and Tom Udall, who met with Gross, as well as Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla this month, have reportedly been critical of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. However, the U.S. government’s decision to refuse any alternative solutions and insist upon Gross’ unconditional release may provide further insight into the imperialist tactics it uses against Cuba.

False premises

In 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, stating, “Alan Gross is wrongly imprisoned. We are trying to work this out on a humanitarian basis. We are not going to trade as if it is a spy for a spy, which they are trying to allege.”

Three false premises stand out in the statement: “wrongly imprisoned;” “humanitarian basis;” and “a spy for a spy.”

The Cuban Revolution has, since its inception, declared its anti-imperialist stance. USAID, the agency that Gross was working for, has aimed to covertly create dissent in Cuba, in violation of Cuban law. To assert that he is “wrongfully imprisoned” despite evidence to the contrary illustrates the U.S. government’s efforts to hold on to Gross as a political weapon to maintain oppressive measures against the island nation.

Thus, the “humanitarian basis” as a straightforward claim is rendered obsolete. Imperialism and humanitarian concerns are incompatible, unless the humanitarian concerns are directly related to human rights abuses — abuses which the U.S. committed in excess against the Cuban population for its support of Fidel and the revolution.

Lastly, the rhetoric of releasing “a spy for a spy” is evidence of the manipulation of facts that shape U.S. propaganda. The USAID contractor is an “innocent victim” in propaganda rhetoric, albeit one abandoned by the imperialist scheme, thus serving to rebrand espionage in Cuba.

Different parameters

The Cuban 5 — “spies,” according to the United States’ hypocritical rhetoric — are victims of a decades-long imperialist plan to undermine the Cuban Revolution. Fernando González and René González are now back in Cuba, having served their unjust sentences in the U.S. The three remaining intelligence agents — Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino — remain incarcerated for serving their country in line with the revolution against imperialist violence.

Yet international support for the Cuban 5 continues to grow, highlighting the importance of internationalist support in a political case which has been determined by imperialist dictates.

While the U.S. attempts to reinforce subjugation through the continued incarceration of the remaining three Cuban patriots, as well as possibly using the case of Alan Gross as yet another reason to refuse to lift the embargo, the scenario reinforces the different parameters within which the U.S. and Cuba function.

The U.S. continues to instigate and utilize terror in various forms against resistance in its quest for further domination. Cuba, on the other hand, has demonstrated, through the revolution, its commitment to defending the island and its people, as part of the process that has ensured the continuation of Cuban internationalism — both in solidarity with the oppressed and in defiance of the imperial power so close to its shores.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News editorial policy.

A new ophthalmologic hospital was opened in Mixco, municipality in the department of Guatemala, as part of Operation Miracle, a program through which Cuban specialists have treated 134,988 people since 2008.

Coordinator of the Cuban medical brigade, Manuel Torres, told Prensa Latina that the Guatemalan Ministry of Public Health and Social Care, together with the Cuban collaborators, established a strategic alliance with the municipality of Mixco resulting in the inauguration of the new hospital.